The Governance Structure
Governance in the development as well as entire life cycle of any IT product is an essential part in overseeing its intended purpose and efficiency. The following figure illustrates a governance chart of an entire System Development Life Cycle process (SDLC) of an Enterprise Resource Planning finance system (ERP).
Analysis of the Structure
Executive Committee Board and Its Chatter
Focus of the board
The executive board is the final voice in approving the entire System Development Life Cycle process (SDLC) of the Enterprise Resource Planning finance system of the institution.
Scope of the board
The executive board considers all the suggestions brought by the implementation committee regarding the project directly, and approves or disapproves them based on management related reasons.
Board Membership and responsibilities
The board is chaired by the CIO (Chief Information Officer.). The board also comprises the senior financial officer, who chairs the planning subcommittee and is the advisory voice on financial implications of the project, supplies of financial resources and execution of cost benefit analysis. The software development officer who chairs the development subcommittee is also in the board. He puts the board into perspective on the alignment of the system with the strategic plans of the enterprise. In addition, he determines the size and duration of the project after a technical schedule, operational and legal feasibility studies are made (Lucas, 2005). He develops the project plan, which is to be presented to the planning subcommittee. The duties of the CIO working in the software development department, heading the analysis subcommittee include sitting in the board and being responsible for creation of process diagrams, establishing specific business requirements and doing an operation versus built analysis (Strong & Volkoff, 2010). The design subcommittee chairperson is responsible for the design of the system infrastructure and model. Testing subcommittee chairperson oversees the documentation of the test conditions and performs the actual system testing.
Administration guidelines
Subsequent meetings for the board are determined by the board on the first meeting. The board members report to the CIO directly, with the chair free to form task forces to assist in the operations of the board. The individual subcommittees work together to ensure there are no gaps in the operations.
Contribution to the Overall Enterprise Goals
The executive board is instrumental in evaluation and approval of such projects to ensure that the organization does not run into a loss and spend a lot by investing in white elephant projects (McKeen & Smith, 2009).
Implementation Committee Board and Its Chatter
Focus of the board
The committee’s main agenda, as described by Cusumano (2012), is to put the coded system into operational status to facilitate its use by the intended users, and produce the desired business outcomes.
Scope of the board
The scope of the committee is limited to training the users of the system in the organization and determining the best implementation method and integration into the organizations IT infrastructure.
Board Membership and responsibilities
This board is chaired by the project implementation officer who is the supervising authority. The board will also have two subcommittees chaired by appointees of the project implementation officer. The system training subcommittee chair will oversee the training of the finance and planning personnel on the new system. Common forms of personnel training comprises training the overall trainer, organizing workshop training and online training of groups using technologically accessed products like the web-Ex (Pearlson & Saunders, 2010.)
The chair of the implementation method committee determines the best implementation mode of the system. This is essential based on available resources. Bellgran & Safsten (2010) advise that if a company lacks available resources to monitor the new system and train its users, it is wisely acceptable for it to install a phased conversion of the system in order effectively to perform system monitoring and user training. If an organization operates under government compliance mandatory laws, and the system does not meet the laws by a given date, then organization is forced to install a plunge conversion of the system (Magana &Whitehead, 2010.)
Administration guidelines
The board relies on the executive board for feedback because management is to give green light on system implementation. The subcommittee chairs are free to appoint task forces to begin the implementation.
Contribution to the Overall Enterprise Goals
This board is essential in ensuring the organization fully implement its projects; hence there are returns for its investments. It also strengthens the operations and adapts the enterprise to the changing technology to fit the business environment.
Ongoing Operations Board and Its Chatter
Focus of the board
This board will have the responsibility of ensuring that the newly implemented system stays in operation.
Scope of the board
This board’s mandate performs additional changes, maintains the existing functions that work properly, and eliminate errors to ensure the system’s adaptability in the changing business world.
Board Membership and responsibilities
The membership of this board consists of the chair who is the change control officer in the organization. The change control officer ensures that the system is maintained in its proper working state, and reports directly to the implementation committee board. The board also includes the maintenance subcommittee chair, who is appointed by the board chair to report on maintenance issues of the system. In ensuring this, the maintenance subcommittee chair appoints four software engineers. The adaptive maintenance engineer, according to Davidsen and Krogstie (2010, p. 299), makes sure that the system is adapted to current business environment standards. The corrective maintenance engineer takes care of repairs on the system. The perfective maintenance engineer ensures there are changes to improve processing speeds and usability functions of the system. The preventive maintenance engineer makes sure that there are minimal or no future occurrences of system failure.
Administration guidelines
The board directly answers to the operations board chairperson and receive directions and further instructions from the same. The subcommittee chairpersons have the powers to initiate a task force to proceed with the operations of the change control board.
Contribution to the Overall Enterprise Goals
This board is helpful in attaining the goals of the organization by ensuring smooth operations and system usability by the respective department in planning the organization’s financial resources.
References
Bellgran, M., & Safsten, K. (2010). Production Development Design and Operation of Production Systems. London: Springer.
Cusumano, A. (2012). Software business: third International Conference. Berlin: Springer.
Davidsen, M. and Krogstie. J. (2010). Information Systems Evolution over the Last 15 Years. In Advanced Information Systems Engineering: 22nd International Conference, CAiSE 2010, Proceedings held 7-9 June 2010 at Hammamet, Tunisia. (pp. 296-301). Berlin, BL: Springer.
Lucas, H. (2005). Information Technology: Strategic Decision Making For Managers. Hoboken, NY: John Wiley & Sons.
Magana, A., & Whitehead, M. (2010). Implementing Sugar CRM 5.x Install, Configure, And Administer A Robust Customer Relationship Management System Using Sugar CRM. Birmingham, UK: Burmingham publishers.
McKeen, J., & Smith, H. (2009). IT Strategy in Action. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Pearlson, K., & Saunders, C. (2010). Managing and using information systems Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
Strong, D., &. Volkoff, O. (2010). Understanding Organization-Enterprise System Fit: A Path to Theorizing the Information Technology Artifact. MIS Quarterly, 34(4), 34.